I am almost through most of the game and I have to imagine I'm experiencing a bug. There are no hypno scenes or anything related to that in every single combat scene. The hyena trainers just sit still in battle and don't do anything. I'm aware there's a "good luck charm" that maybe is supposed to put me in this state, but I've never acquired/used it.
Viewing post in Bug Reports Thread - Version (0.5.1 to 0.6.2 (Content Pack 1))
That's definitely not expected behavior. I'll have to do a fresh playthrough on the newest build to make sure all the triggers are working correctly, which will take a bit. Meanwhile, do you have any other saves you can try, to see if this is unique to a certain path or game-wide? I am puzzled why this would only crop up now, as it's a pretty big thing to be missing, and I haven't changed anything related to those triggers in a long time. It seems to have been triggering fine for everyone up to now. Will check though.
Alright, just finished my test playthrough. Not able to reproduce: the hypno battle stuff seems to be coming up fine in 0.5.5. Keep in mind that the hypno/battlesex content only happens AFTER the desert area. There's none of that in the initial desert area fights. You did say you were "almost through the game" so that's PROBABLY not the issue, but just clarifying. Let me know how attempt 2 goes and if you manage to narrow it down to a particular path. For what it's worth, my path in the test play was: get to gutter, fight Mahir, go to Ent. Dist. I fights. Should work just as well if you do his job instead though.
I did a fresh install and started a new game. I believe the bug is still happening.
My EXACT path:
-Game was installed/extracted to my downloads folder. No CS1 carry-over
-Whole game played in windowed mode, all sound settings at 20%, always dash is on. All dialogue is progressed with "X"
-Went straight to the hotel, got the part, went to the hideout. Walked to the east exit of city.
-Started again at the west side of the city - ran to the hideout, had the backstory explanation. Picked up items in the trunk and fridge.
-Proceeded through the desert area killing every single enemy. Every fight started with a hard knocks followed by regular attack to finish enemies. After every fight, I restored my health with Patch Up
-Go to the ambush with 5 enemies near the odd-looking statue. Killed them. I used 1 hamburger during the fight.
-Pick up the disk, which started the cutscene.
-Talked with Mahir, when he offered me to fight, I said "nevermind"
-Went straight to the porn shop, went through the cutscenes in there.
-Entered entertainment district 1. Got the ambush by 5 enemies. At this point there are no hypno scenes. Every enemy attack is double slash. Winning this fight got me level 12
-Fought through several more enemies, no special events in combat. To additionally test. I would narrow a fight down to one enemy, and just spam guard until something else happened. Nothing ever did.
I could further verify by going all the way to the hyena trainers, but it seems like it's still happening
Edit: An update: I tried playing through exactly like this on 0.5.2, and the bug is no longer there. I noticed in 0.5.2, you are required to go back to mahir after the porn shop scene. In 0.5.5, this isn't the case. You can just leave the city immediately after the porn shop. This is probably whats causing the bug.
Yup, think you've got it exactly. The FIRST job, you're supposed to go back and talk to Mahir before you're allowed out, the others you're just allowed out automatically. I think a user reported "not being able to leave the plaza after job" as a bug, and I "fixed" it, forgetting this difference between the first job and the second and third. And yes, if you don't interact with Mahir there as expected, all kinds of things get thrown off, including the trigger for hypno in combat.
I have reset it to what it was, and it seems to be performing correctly now. I'm going to test a bit more tomorrow to make sure the second and third job are still working as intended, then I'll get the fixed version up. This whole thing has been a head-banging-against-the-wall moment, but hopefully this will be the last "fix" on this issue.